Mehmet Ali Agca

Papal assailant Mehmet Ali Agca is undergoing treatment for tuberculosis at the prison where he is serving a life sentence, his lawyer said. Agca, 26, is serving a life sentence for the shooting attack on Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul II, the globe-trotting pontiff who led the Catholic Church for nearly 27 years, and Pope John XXIII, who called the reforming Second Vatican Council, will be declared saints, the Vatican said on Friday. The Vatican said Pope Francis had approved a second miracle attributed to John Paul, a Pole who was elected in 1978 as the first non-Italian pope in 450 years and died in 2005. His progression to sainthood is the fastest in modern times. ...

The man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 will be released from a Turkish prison on Thursday, officials said. Mehmet Ali Agca was extradited to Turkey in 2000 after serving almost 20 years in Italy for shooting and wounding the pope in St. Peter's Square in Rome. His motive for shooting John Paul in the abdomen on May 13, 1981, remains unclear.

After nearly 30 years behind bars, the Turkish man who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II walked out of a prison a free man Monday and promptly predicted the end of the world. Now a gray-haired 52-year-old, Mehmet Ali Agca declared himself the "Christ eternal" and prophesied that humanity would be wiped out this century, in a statement passed out to a scrum of waiting reporters in Ankara, the Turkish capital. Later the hollow-cheeked Agca, who has spent more of his life...

After 25 years behind bars in Turkey for trying to assassinate Pope John Paul II and fatally gunning down a journalist, Mehmet Ali Agca (above) was released from prison--and promptly gave his supporters and his enemies the slip. Within hours of tasting freedom Thursday for the first time since wounding John Paul in 1981, Agca disappeared out the back door of a military hospital.

$38M for victims A $38 million special fund to compensate survivors of the Interstate 35W bridge collapse last August was unveiled in Minneapolis early Friday. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he would sign the agreement into law. McCain on defense At a town hall meeting in Denver on Friday, John McCain defended himself against TV ads that accuse him of advocating a 100-year war in Iraq, calling them lies. The ads tie McCain to President Bush and cite McCain's comments that there could be an...

Two men who hijacked an Air Malta Boeing 737 to Germany on Monday demanded the release of Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca before surrendering, police and TV said. Agca is serving a life sentence in an Italian prison for wounding Pope John Paul II in an assassination attempt in 1981, German police and TV said. Police said one man, who had requested a Turkish-speaking interpreter, had told them he had a bomb on board the plane, which was diverted on a flight from Malta to Istanbul.

A German man jumped a security barrier and grabbed the back of Pope Benedict XVI's open popemobile before being swarmed by security guards Wednesday -- reviving a debate over whether the pontiff needs stronger protection during his public audiences. Benedict was not harmed and appeared not to notice, never looking back as he waved to the crowd in St. Peter's Square. But security analysts said he exposes himself to undue risk by appearing at the same place and time each week in an open jeep.

On July 22, 1587 a second English colony, under Capt. John White, was established on Roanoke Island off North Carolina. By 1591 all the colonists had vanished. In 1849 Emma Lazarus, author of the poem "The New Colossus" carved at the base of the Statue of Liberty, was born in New York City. In 1864 Gen. William Sherman's Union army defeated Gen. John Hood's Confederate troops in the first battle of Atlanta. In 1890 Rose Kennedy, mother of the late...

On May 13, 1607, the English colony at Jamestown, Va., was settled. In 1846 Congress declared a state of war between the U.S. and Mexico. In 1914 Joe Louis, who would become world heavyweight boxing champion, was born in Lafayette, Ala. In 1917 three peasant children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary. In 1918 the first U.S. airmail stamps, featuring a picture of an airplane, were introduced. On some of the stamps, the airplane was printed upside-down, making them...

Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who nearly killed Pope John Paul II in May 1981, is seeking a partial reprieve from a life prison sentence, his lawyer said Wednesday. "He wants to get out of jail. He says what's passed is passed, and he is asking to be set free," the lawyer, Marina Magistrelli, told Reuters. She said she would submit a "formal and well-argued" request to the Italian authorities later this year, probably in September, to have Agca's sentence commuted to 30 years. If the plea were accepted by...

It has persisted as one of the more mysterious cases of international intrigue in recent times: Who shot the pope? A committee of Italy's Parliament investigating the 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II released its conclusion Thursday that "beyond any reasonable doubt" the Soviet Union ordered the attack that seriously wounded the pope as he greeted crowds in St. Peter's Square. The Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, was long ago convicted in the shooting and served 19...

Turkey's justice minister asked a court Tuesday to annul the release of the man who shot Pope John Paul II and return him to prison for at least 11 more months for crimes he committed in Turkey. Mehmet Ali Agca, 48, was released from an Istanbul prison Thursday after serving 19 years in Italy for shooting the pope in May 1981 and 5 1/2 years more in Turkey for murdering a Turkish journalist here in 1979. Justice Minister Cemil Cicek asked an appeals court to annul the release,...

An Italian parliamentary commission has concluded "beyond any reasonable doubt" that the Soviet Union was behind the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II, the first time an official body has blamed the Kremlin for the failed assassination. The draft report, obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, said the pope was considered a threat to the Soviet bloc because of his support for the Solidarity labor movement in his native Poland. Solidarity was the first free trade union in...

The release of the Turk who shot Pope John Paul II may shed light on a quarter-century-old mystery: the disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee who was abducted by kidnappers claiming they were seeking to win the gunman's freedom. Emanuela Orlandi's family has asked prosecutors to reopen the case because "new elements" have emerged that warrant investigation, the family's lawyer, Massimo Krogh, said Monday. He declined to speculate on whether the release of Mehmet Ali...

Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, was detained by authorities Friday after an appeals court overturned a decision to free him. An hour and half after the ruling, police handcuffed Agca at an apartment block in Istanbul's lower-middle-class Kartal neighborhood, close to the jail from which he had been released Jan. 12. Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler said Agca did not resist. He did, however, repeat assertions that he was the messiah. "I am...

A Turkish witness for the prosecution in the Pope plot trial Thursday contradicted Mehmet Ali Agca's claim that Bulgarians had organized and paid for the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. Yalcin Ozbey, the witness, based his testimony on what he said two other Turks, Oral Celik and Sedat Sirri Kadem, told him. "Celik and Kaden told me that the Bulgarians simply knew about it (the conspiracy) but did nothing to support them," he said. Agca has testified that both Celik and...

Turkey's justice minister asked a court Tuesday to annul the release of the man who shot Pope John Paul II and return him to prison for at least 11 more months for crimes he committed in Turkey. Mehmet Ali Agca, 48, was released from an Istanbul prison Thursday after serving 19 years in Italy for shooting the pope in May 1981 and 5 1/2 years more in Turkey for murdering a Turkish journalist here in 1979. Justice Minister Cemil Cicek asked an appeals court to annul the release,...

After 25 years behind bars in Turkey for trying to assassinate Pope John Paul II and fatally gunning down a journalist, Mehmet Ali Agca (above) was released from prison--and promptly gave his supporters and his enemies the slip. Within hours of tasting freedom Thursday for the first time since wounding John Paul in 1981, Agca disappeared out the back door of a military hospital.